Fire Safety Tips

Inside Your Home

1. Install smoke detectors: Smoke inhalation is the number one cause of fire-related deaths, mostly while people are in their homes sleeping. Every home needs at least one smoke detector. If you have a two story home, you need one on every floor. They should be placed outside of sleeping areas. Check the detector once a month by pushing the test button. If the alarm does not go off, or if the detector begins to "chirp" on it's own every 30 seconds, replace the battery.
2. Children and senior are more vulnerable: Children and senior citizens are particularly vulnerable during home fires. Ninety percent of fire deaths involving children occur in homes without working smoke alarms.
3. Test your smoke detectors: A working smoke alarm cuts the risk of dying in a home fire nearly in half by providing early warning and critical extra seconds to escape.
4. Be cautious when people smoke cigarettes: If you have a party at your house and people are smoking, check all seat cushions and trash cans before you go to bed. Cigarettes can smolder for hours after you go to bed and then turn into a raging inferno.
5. Be careful how you discard your Christmas trees: Green trees will burn, but dry trees will burn in seconds creating intense heat. Children will sometimes pick up discarded trees and make forts. This can become a death trap for them if they are playing with matches or lighters. It's important to remove trees after the holiday season. See the Heavy Brush and Bulky Items Pick-up Schedule, or visit the Solid Waste Department's page for more information. 

Outside Your Home

When you call 911, you expect a prompt response from the fire and police departments. The following suggestions can help us find you when you call 911.

1. Have visible address number: City ordinance requires all buildings to have address numbers that are visible and legible from the street on the front of your home or business.
2. Make sure address number is contrasting color: If the numbers are on the trim of the house or business and you repaint the trim, please no not paint over them because they become invisible. The numbers should sharply contrast in color with the surface they are secured on.
3. Make sure address number is not obstructed: Make sure trees, shrubs or other types of foliage are not blocking the view of the numbers from the street.
4. Do not spell out address number: It is best to use actual numbers instead of scripted written numbers. It can be very difficult reading Seven Thousand Six Hundred Eighty Seven from the street. It is much easier to read 7687.
5. Use steel or wooden cut-out address numbers: Please do not rely only on painted numbers on the curb in front of your house or business. Painted numbers wear off as car tires rub against them. When it rains, the curbs fill with water and cover the numbers. When cars are parked in front of your house or business, the numbers are covered. If these numbers are all you have, you may have nothing when you need the numbers the most.